


What's a Mob to a Queen?

by midnighteverlark



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Birthday, F/M, Luxury, Missing Persons, Mob Boss Katniss, Mob Queen Katniss, Wealth, Wishes, code names, it's an illegal organization but it's a good one trust me, it's not kidnapping it's a surprise ultimatum, kind of, more like, they're kind of like robin hood with guns and a big fancy mansion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:36:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnighteverlark/pseuds/midnighteverlark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At 17 years old, Katniss vanishes off the face of the earth. Five years later, on the day of Prim's birthday, Katniss shows up at the doorstep of her old home with an ultimatum for both her sister and lifelong best friend: "Come with me now and leave everything you know behind, or stay here and never tell anyone that you ever saw me." Peeta and Prim are shocked and overjoyed to discover that Katniss is alive, but that's not all: she is the Mockingjay – the queen of a powerful, definitely illegal but morally good organization. But reuniting with Katniss has costs; they will both need to say goodbye to their old lives and their old identities if they want to survive here, and Katniss will need to decide whether or not she can truly trust her two oldest companions. Will they find a way to get their old lives back, or will they join her in her life of danger, wealth and power?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's a Mob to a Queen?

Pamela "Prim" Edithe Abernathy

Code Name: none

Every birthday for the past five years, I've blown out my candles and made the same wish.

The house is silent and dark when I walk in. Uncle Haymitch will be at work for another six hours at least, and neither one of us opened any blinds before we left this morning. I hesitate in the doorway after toeing off my sandals. Mom always liked the curtains open, and it was her job to open them every morning, before heart problems exacerbated by grief locked her first in her own hospital and then in the ground. Kat tended to keep the curtains closed, though. She said she didn't like seeing the other houses packed so claustrophobically tight, or the cars going by, or the smog swirling overhead from the nearby city. She hated the city.

I compromise by telling myself I'll open them after I blow out my candles. Well. Candle. The cupcake isn't likely to hold much more than one.

I drop my backpack on the dining room table and dig out the only-slightly-squished cupcake I bought from the cafeteria. It's the kind with too-sweet cream filling that oozes out the sides and a couple haphazard squiggles of white frosting on top, and it's sweating inside its plastic wrapping. I try to be glad that I have a birthday cake at all – a few years ago Uncle Haymitch forgot until a couple of days later, at which point he rectified it by grabbing some donuts on the way home from work and sticking candles in them – but I can't help but be a little grumpy as I go clattering around the kitchen, looking for a candle. I turned eighteen today. Shouldn't I be at a party, or at least eating a real cake?

I wonder what Kat did for her eighteenth birthday. It would have been only a few months after she disappeared.

I can't find any real birthday candles, so I come back to the dining room with a pack of matches and the smallest candle I can find, which happens to be a bright pink tea candle from the boutique of Haymitch's worst-enemy-slash-girlfriend-slash-I-don't-know. I set the tea candle on top of the cupcake and light it.

For five years I've been told that I'm in denial, that my sister is dead, that I saw the evidence myself. That I need to accept it or I'll never heal. But I know she's not. I can tell. I would have known if Kat died; I would have felt it. We were always so close. Once, when I was no older than eight, my arm started hurting for no obvious reason. It wasn't until after school that I came home to discover that Kat had broken hers falling out of a tree. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I believe there are ties between people that science can't explain. I believe I felt her pain that day – and I believe I would have felt it if she died. I believe she's still out there, somewhere.

Or, at least, I used to. Every year I grow less sure. I want to believe, _so_ badly, but with every ineffective shooting star, every fruitless dandelion, every eyelash, every 11:11, every wishbone and every coin in a fountain, every mushroom ring and ladybug, another tiny piece of me crumbles. When I was barely thirteen I had no doubt it would work. If I could just fold enough paper stars, pick up enough pennies, spot enough clovers, spend enough time with my hands folded at my bedside, Kat would come home. Now it's a habit I'm scared to break. Because if I stop trying, it means I've given up on her. And I'll never give up on her. She would never give up on me. Plus, it's bad luck to break a tradition.

Every birthday for the past five years, I've blown out my candles and made the same wish: that my sister will come home.

I screw my eyes shut, wish as hard as I possibly can – even though I'm technically an adult today, so probably too old for wishing, but I don't care – and then open them and blow out my one lopsided candle. A pathetic curl of smoke dribbles skywards and then dissipates as I pinch the candle between my fingers and drop it on the table, leaving a couple blobs of Barbie-pink wax in the oily frosting.

"Happy birthday to me," I mutter as I pick the wax off with a fingernail.

I've just taken the first bite when a key scrapes in the lock of the front door.

Haymitch can't be home yet. And anyway, Haymitch doesn't use the front door. He always comes in through the garage. I freeze with cupcake crumbs falling down the front of my sundress, staring in the direction of the door as if I could see through the faded sage-green wallpaper to the entryway. The lock jiggles. Once. Twice. And then, with the groan and squeak of ageing, rust-eaten hinges, the door opens. My brain – the pattern-recognizing part of my brain that has kept humans alive since we were living in trees – knows what's happening before my heart does, but once the recognition spreads into my chest it starts pumping double-time almost immediately. I know this pattern. One key scrape, two lock jiggles, one groan-and-squeak. Next comes two and a half footsteps, another groan as the door closes, two _ka-thunks_ as boots hit the peeling linoleum, a little sigh, the crash of keys hitting the key bowl, and then –

"Prim! I'm home!"

My limbs go cold as the strength drains out of them and pools on the floor around me. I kind of stagger into the wall behind me, one hand groping weakly for a chair or something while the other still holds the chocolaty pulp that was a cupcake.

Footsteps – and not just any footsteps, but _her_ footsteps, _Kat's_ footsteps – I'd know her footsteps anywhere – move from the entryway to the kitchen. Her backpack hits the floor with a soft _fwump,_ just like it did every day for nearly twelve years, and a cupboard opens with a squeak.

I realize three things at once: that I'm shaking, that I'm crying, and that I still have cupcake in my mouth. I swallow, wipe crumbs off my face with clumsy fingers and drop the rest back onto the wrapper, and then I make myself move forward. _I must be hallucinating or something,_ part of me reasons. _I've finally gone entirely insane._ But I don't stop moving. I creep towards the kitchen, terrified of finding her there and terrified of not finding her there and knowing it's impossible.

Stepping around the corner is the worst part. It's like I've lost the ability to control my body. I actually, physically have to force myself to move.

And there she is. Standing at the counter with her back to me, making a peanut butter and banana sandwich, casual as can be. Katherine Alexandra Abernathy, the girl that was presumed dead when, weeks after her disappearance, they found one of her socks and some strands of her hair in the basement of a known criminal. My big sister. Kat.

It's like I've been jolted back in time. That's her beat-up black backpack flopped over on the ground. Those are her clothes – the _exact same_ clothes she was wearing the last time I saw her. High-waisted distressed jeans. A dark green _I ran in the 2010 School District 12 marathon_ t-shirt. A tight French braid, like always. And the smell of peanut butter and banana… That's what finally pushes a sob up my throat. No one else I know makes peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I haven't eaten one since she packed my lunch, that last morning.

Her hands pause when the sob comes out, and then, very slowly, they go about screwing the lid back onto the Jif jar and wiping the butter knife clean on the top piece of bread. And then she turns.

"Hey, Prim."

There's no transition. I'm standing in the kitchen doorway with every muscle taut as a wire, and then I'm squeezing her as tightly as I possibly can, spreading a lovely slew of spit, tears and snot across her neck and smearing chocolate frosting over the back of her shirt as I grab and pull and never let go, ever, ever –

Lavender essential oil was always Kat's favorite perfume, ever since she was a kid and Mom was still in her natural remedies phase.

She smells like lavender.

I believe in wishes again.

* * *

 Katniss Everdeen

Formerly: Katherine "Kat" Alexandra Abernathy

Code Name: Mockingjay

Walking up my driveway is the strangest thing I've done in five years – and that's saying something, considering exactly what I've been doing for the past half-decade.

I know my uncle is at work, and will be for several more hours according to the tail I put on him over a month ago, but I still pause to sweep the garage with the scanner Beetee perfected just last week. No cars. I turn the scanner on the house, next, and find Prim's heat signature in the dining room. A smaller, brighter point of heat glows some inches in front of her. I frown at it, and then realize: a birthday candle. She's celebrating her birthday alone. My stomach twists and I slip the scanner back into my backpack.

Just before I get to the door, I pause – but only for a moment. I remind myself that I can't get emotional about this. It needs to be quick. In and out. And plus, if I go around crying and making faces during a mission, what kind of example am I setting for my operatives? Not to mention that many of them still watch me like hawks for any sign of weakness. I have their respect, loyalty, compliance – that I am sure of – the trick now is keeping it.

Just another mission. In and out. Breathe.

I come in just as I would have on that day – the day I never did come home – pushing in through the front door at exactly 2:47pm, as if I just walked home from school, tossing my keys into the bowl and announcing, "Prim, I'm home."

My heart is doing a very convincing impression of a jackhammer, but I ignore it as I walk into the kitchen and slide my backpack off my shoulder just as casually as if half a dozen of my agents hadn't already swept the house while Prim was at school earlier today and half a dozen more weren't posted at various locations around the block, keeping watch. I wince when the backpack hits the floor, hoping I didn't crack Beetee's sensor. Having a piece of tech that can do just about anything _and_ blend in seamlessly as a Smartphone has the unfortunate side effect of breaking just as easily as a Smartphone, too.

The house smells the same, perhaps except for a slight tang of alcohol that wasn't there before, and part of me immediately regresses into a scared seventeen-year-old. I want to dash up the stairs, slam the door to my bedroom, crawl between the sheets and not come out for a very long time. But that is no longer my life – no longer _me_. I'm not Katherine Abernathy anymore. That girl died. They found a piece of her clothing and some DNA in the home of a serial abuser. No one ever knew exactly how they got there – no one except the agents that planted them there, of course – but it was enough evidence to get the suspect locked up for a good long time and put a nice flowery obituary in the local paper. Sad story, really. And if every single one of Katherine Abernathy's records happened to be wiped out in a freak data accident, well, I wouldn't happen to know anything about that. I hear the officials were more worried about recovering the records of the living, anyway. A good choice. The living can be so troublesome.

I can hear her approaching the kitchen, padding across the carpet in bare feet, but I pretend to be oblivious as I fall into old muscle memory, pulling out ingredients for my after-school snack of choice. It takes me a few seconds to find the bananas – they used to be in a hanging basket, not in a bowl on the counter – and in that time I listen to my little sister's breathing go through several tempos and rhythms. Everything in me strains towards her, because _Prim is crying, Prim is upset, Prim is right_ there _,_ but I keep my shoulders relaxed and my eyes on the microwave clock. I allowed myself ten minutes inside the house. Three have already gone by.

A little sob just barely makes it out of her chest, and it takes everything I have not to immediately sweep across the kitchen and gather her up in my arms, because while I may not be Katherine Abernathy anymore, I am still – will always be – Prim's big sister. But I take my time, pushing down the emotions that are threatening to bubble to the surface, and only allow myself to turn when the food is put away and the butter knife is strategically positioned so I could grab it without looking if I needed to.

"Hey, Prim."

It comes out a little wobbly, but that's okay. Finnick is the one at the other end of the bug at the bottom of my backpack, and unlike some of the others, I trust him. He may give me a knowing look later, but it won't bring him snarling down on me, accusing me of being too weak, too young, too inexperienced to run Panem. Which would be a real shame, since I'd have to kill him if he did, and I like Finnick. He's an ass, sometimes, but a genuinely well-meaning ass. That's rare in our line of business.

All at once, Prim comes flying across the kitchen to fling herself onto me, wrapping boa-constrictor arms around me like she's afraid I'll vanish into thin air if she lets go. Well. Vanish into thin air _again_.

God, she's as tall as me now.

I pet her hair and look over her head at the clock. Four minutes. I swallow down a lump that I thought I was well-trained enough to will away and pry her away from me just long enough to stoop for my backpack. Out comes the gift, and with it, another, even harder round of sobs. She doesn't try to say anything, just takes the present and fumbles at the paper until it falls away to reveal a slim silver necklace in a glass box. At the end is a little round pendant of a bird turning in mid-flight, an arrow clamped in its beak: an exact replica of my own pin, except silver, and with a tiny black jewel as the bird's eye. Well, the jewel is really a micro-camera and microphone, and there's a tracking device inside the bird's body, but I won't be mentioning that quite yet. Dad had them do the same thing to me when I was recruited. It's a security measure, that's all. I touch the gold pin at my shoulder as Prim sniffles and stops her sobbing long enough to slide the necklace out of its box and put it on.

Another glance at the clock. Four and a half minutes now. We have to move, whether she's ready or not.

"Prim." I take her by the shoulders, lift her chin, get her to look at me. "Prim, listen."

"I – you're –" she blubbers. I talk over her.

"Prim. Listen to me. I can't stay long." Her eyes flash in panic and I push ahead before she can say anything. "I can't explain right now, but you need to make a choice. Either you stay here and you never say a single word about this to anyone, _ever_ –" I give her a little shake – "do you understand? Not one person, Pamela, ever – or you come with me."

"I want to go with –"

"If you come with me, I can't guarantee you'll be able to come back."

That gives her pause. She blinks at me with a red, mascara-streaked face – since when does my little Prim wear mascara? – and tilts her head as if waiting for me to take it back or laugh it off as a joke, but I stare right back with hard eyes. No point softening that particular blow. If my little sister leaves with me today, Pamela Edithe Abernathy will have to die just as Katherine Alexandra did. It's a hard life, but it's a new life. A new chance. I want to tell her this, somehow, but there are only five minutes left, and I end up just crushing her to me again and saying, "Please come."

I wait an agonizing ten seconds before her chin moves against my shoulder. A nod.

I allow myself a smile of relief, but I hide it in her hair, and by the time I lift my head and step back my expression is controlled again.

"Good. We need –"

My radio beeps from inside my backpack and she jumps about a mile. I curse and go digging for it. Why is it always at the very bottom just when I need it? A small firearm, several knives, the "Smartphone," Kevlar rope, lip gloss that doubles as a small shiv and triples as a signal blocker – huh, I forgot I had that – a wad of money in case I need to bribe someone, three different fake IDs for me, three different fake IDs for Prim, a compact change of clothes for me and one for her, a frozen yogurt gift card – what? – and, finally, the radio.

It beeps again just as I get my hands on it. "Copy," I snap, cursing whoever cased this delay.

"Boss, we've got a civilian approaching the house," Johanna replies. "Just got out of his car. Carrying a box."

"Sidetrack him," I say as I cross to the front of the house and peek through the blinds.

"Foxy's on it," Jo says. And I should have known she was. She's good at her job; they all are. That's why I took them along.

Well, there's the car – God, what a piece of junk – and there's Foxy, dressed as a saleswoman, pulling aside the civilian to talk to him about lawn care opportunities, just as we discussed. She's walking sideways between him and the house, pointing to her clipboard and obviously talking a mile a minute about how great some imaginary fertilizer is, and he's –

Wait.

It's dim inside the house, so I'm having trouble making out details in the overwhelming brightness outside, but the figure is obviously trying to politely disengage himself from Foxy. By the way he's walking I could have sworn –

He turns and something deep in my gut shrivels up into a cold little knot. He's filled out since I last saw him, and his hair is a little longer, a little shaggier, but it can't be anyone else.

I watch him smile and try to sidestep the increasingly persistent saleswoman for another three seconds, and then I see what he's holding. It's not just a box; it's a box with the bakery logo on it. He was bringing Prim a birthday cake.

It takes me all of half a second to make what could either be the best or worst decision of my career. "Let him through, Foxy," I say through the radio. I see her eyebrows shift minutely upwards in surprise as she receives the message through her Bluetooth, but she releases Peeta with a cheerful wave.

Immediately, three-fourths of my brain begins to scream, _What the hell did you just do, you idiot?_ But it's too late to turn back now.

Prim appears at my side and wraps strong little fingers around my arm as my life-long best friend steps onto the porch and lifts a hand to knock.

"Peter?"  she whispers as she peers through the blinds. It's strange hearing her refer to him by his real name – although, why wouldn't she? I was the only one who ever called him Peeta, just like I was the only one who ever called my sister Prim instead of Pam or Pamela. My minor speech impediment cleared up after I turned six, but the nicknames I unintentionally granted them stuck with me.

"Answer the door as if nothing's happened," I instruct in a whisper.

She just nods and goes to the door, no argument. Smart girl.

I run back to the kitchen on my toes and collect my backpack, stuffing the wrapping from Prim's necklace into it. Then I pop my sandwich into a plastic bag, rinse off the plate and knife, wipe them dry and put them back in their places. A quick, quiet radio call and Johanna slips through the back door with a nod and begins wiping down surfaces for fingerprints.

Peeta doubtless heard the sink running, no matter how quietly we move about the kitchen, but he seems too preoccupied with Prim's tears to ask about it.

With one last glance at the time – three minutes left – I turn the corner and grab him by the shoulder. He startles, jerks around, sees me.

"Peeta," I start, and I mean to go through the same speech I did with Prim, but suddenly it's like everything I've been pushing down over the last five years has all resurfaced in one hot, surging burst. Every moment needing someone I could trust and having no one; every cold, empty night spent hugging a pillow and pretending it was him; every time I wanted my best friend back more than anything in the world. Every time I rolled that stupid plastic pearl over my lips – the only token from home I had on me except for what was in my backpack – and replayed the kiss in my mind. The kiss that was barely a kiss at all, clumsy and shy as it was, and yet maybe the last kiss I would ever have – certainly the last kiss I would ever have from him. And every single time, I told myself to let him go, because attachments are nothing but a liability in the kind of life I lead. But apparently I didn't take my own advice, because now, looking up into his face for the first time in years, I'm not the Mockingjay anymore. I'm not even Katniss. I'm just Kat, the young, stupid girl who was looking forward to holding her best friend's hand in study hall when she got to school – and then never made it to the school building.

I open my mouth, and all that comes out is, "I'm so sorry." _I missed you,_ I want to whisper, scream, _I missed you so much,_ but Johanna is in the house, no doubt listening, and there'd be a world of trouble if she heard anything like that.

He's just looking at me – gaping, really. His silence allows me to gather myself and pull back behind the sturdy walls I've constructed. The plan. I have a plan.

 _A stupid plan,_ part of me grumbles. _You should have just pulled Prim out the back door and let him be._

"Peeta?" I try again, this time with my emotions on lock. "Peeta, it's me. It's Katni– it's Katherine. It's Kat." I take both his shoulders in my hands, and – damn, has he put some muscle on since high school. "Look at me. Listen to me – we have to go. I have to go and I'm taking Prim with me. You can come with us or you can stay, but if you stay you cannot tell anyone I was here. You can't tell anyone I'm alive. No one. Can you do that for me? Peeta?"

I'm gently shaking his shoulders and he's just staring at me, slowly and clumsily reaching out to cup my face, probably not hearing a word I'm saying.

Finally he breathes, "It's you."

An invisible band tightens a notch or two around my chest. "Yeah, it's me. It's Kat."

"You're here. You're alive."

"Yes, I'm here. I'm here but I have to go again. I have to go and –" Fuck it. "Come with me. Please."

"Kat," he mumbles.

His eyes are glazed-over, as if in a high fever, and he's ghost-white. Maybe confronting him here wasn't a good idea. I'm about to try again when he lurches forward, clapping me to him in an awkward, one-armed hug. I go stiff as a board. Prim was one thing, but with an agent in the house –

Of fucking course, Jo chooses that moment to stick her head through the kitchen door, scaring the bejesus out of Prim, and say, "I don't think he's gonna be much use right now, boss. He seems kinda in shock. Should we pack 'im up?"

"Is the place clean?" I ask, trying to step away from him without removing the one thing that seems to be keeping him from face-planting into to carpet – i.e., me.

"Sparkling," she says, grinning. Damn it. A nice fat bonus will have to find its way into her bank account, or I'll never hear the end of this. I know how this works.

"Who's…?" Prim ventures, but she trails off when Peeta speaks again.

"You're dead," he says, blankly. And then, in the same tone, "I'm dead."

And before I know what's happening, he's leaning in to kiss me.

I jerk back the moment I realize what's happening, leaving him with hands hovering mid-air. We blink at each other for one moment, and in the next he catches a face full of sleep syrup aerosol from the tiny canister on my keychain. Johanna steps in to catch him without missing a beat, and together we lower him to the ground.

Prim whispers, "Is he okay?" and I rush to reassure her. Then I glare very hard at Johanna.

"Not a word," I threaten, but she just winks. She knows how this works too.

"I want a vacation," she says brightly as she hauls Peeta over her shoulders with a strength no one would ever suspect from someone with a pixie build Tinkerbell would envy.

"You'll have one," I promise.

"Paris or no deal."

"Fine."

I open the door for Foxy, who glances at me in puzzlement when she sees Peeta but goes to help without a word. At least someone around here has a little respect.

Johanna pauses before they haul Peeta out the door. She smirks. "You've got a little something…" She paws at her own shoulder. "Just there." Then she grabs the cake box Peeta had been carrying and, balancing that on one hand while the other arm assists Foxy in supporting Peeta himself, saunters out the door.

Prim tries to brush the chocolate crumbs off me, but I shake my head. We have to be gone two minutes ago.

"You can't take anything," I warn her. "Nothing but what's on you at this very moment. Just one token from home can be used to track you, and we can't risk that."

She looks down at herself, smoothing her hands over the cheery sundress and shawl she has on.

I allow my voice to soften. "Prim. You can still change your mind."

"No."

She looks up again, and her expression is suddenly so much like the picture of Dad that hangs in my office that I have to smile. I never met him. He barely had time to relay his instructions about me before dying of blood loss – being shot will do that to you, I've heard – but from the multitude of stories there are about him, I know where at least some of my characteristics come from. And Prim's.

"I'm not letting you go again."

I nod. "Then let's go."

I take her hand and lead her out the door, grabbing our shoes on the way by, and Foxy falls into step beside me. "Mockingjay is moving," she reports under her breath with a finger to her ear. All around the block, I know, the agents hidden in plain sight will retreat towards their respective nondescript cars, giving the house and neighborhood one last sweep before moving out. In approximately three minutes, the cars will coalesce into a loose oval around my own, and we'll start our journey back to base – I glance at Foxy's watch – right on time.

I accept the pair of sunglasses she offers me and flick them over my eyes.

Except for the minor detail of abducting Peeta as well, everything is going according to plan.

* * *

 Prim asks no less than a million questions in the car. First they're primarily about the car itself – unassuming on the outside, luxurious on the inside, it's safe to say she's never seen one like it before – but soon the topic of inquiry turns to me. Where I've been. Why I left. If I was safe. If I was happy. I answer all but a few with, "We'll talk later," and turn the question around on her. What has _she_ been up to? What has she done, seen, experienced since I've been gone? Has she been happy? I know most of the answers already, of course, from the agents that have been tailing her, but I pretend not to. If she's talking about herself she's not asking questions that it's not safe to answer yet. We may be in the car, but we have a long way to go until we're back at base, and until then it's best not to reveal a single shred of information more than absolutely necessary.

Yes, we have a long way to go. Even a straight line between points A and B would take some hours, and our path is hardly a straight line. There are switchbacks, car trades, points at which we split up and points at which we meet again, and detours to safe houses both to throw off any followers and conduct a little business on the way. Half an hour into it I signal Foxy to hand back a bottle of soda with a few teaspoons of liquid-form sleep syrup mixed in, and Prim nods off within minutes.

I sigh, slide off my sunglasses and rub at the bridge of my nose to ward off an impending headache. Then I unbuckle to start changing into more respectable clothes. I should have made Prim change before she fell asleep as well, to lessen the chance of someone recognizing the clothes she has now officially vanished while wearing, but oh well.

Maybe knocking out your long-lost sister _and_ best friend in one day is a bit much, but if I'm going to have the energy to show that den of hackers that I'm not one they should be messing with – oh, and then there's the ammo exchange at the turnpike, too, let's not forget that – I need my peace and quiet.

I've just removed the pin from my t-shirt and pulled a pair of heels and an only moderately wrinkled suit jacket, blouse and pencil skirt from my backpack when Peeta stirs. I glance over up him, but I'm not too worried about it. That stuff is pretty strong. Even if he partially wakes up, it's unlikely he'll remember anything that happens right now.

Fuck, why did I have to take him along? I shouldn't have even let him see me. I meant what I said to Prim: once you're in this life, there's no going back. What if he hates me for what I just did? Or – a trickle of cold runs down my spine – what if he never wanted to see me in the first place? What if he's mad at me for leaving?

All of this and more wheels through my mind as he rubs at bleary eyes and tries to look around the car, but my face remains neutral and my posture loose and relaxed. I've got the skirt on and I'm wrestling with the blouse when he slurs, "Katherine?"

"It's Katniss now," I correct, but gently. "How do you feel?"

He groans. "Heavy. 'm I dead, Kat?"

"No." I finish buttoning the blouse and reach over Prim to stroke the backs of my fingers across his cheek, because I can, because no one is watching, and because he won't remember it tomorrow morning. "You're not dead. You're just… starting a different life."

He leans into my touch with a heavy sigh, gives a goofy smile and drawls, "Re-in-car-nation. Those Buddhists were right a-a-a-l-l-l-l-l-l along." I can tell he's slipping away again by the way his head is falling forward, but he manages to catch my fingers in his own and bring them to his lips. "Missed you, Kat," he mumbles against my skin.

I retract my hand once he's asleep again, but I don't stop looking at him. At both of them.

I only register that the car has slowed to a crawl when there's a tap on the divider. "First stop coming up, boss."

I curse and whip out a mini makeup kit from a cup holder. Can't interrogate anyone looking like I just rolled out of bed, can I? Surprisingly enough, acne and under-eye bags aren't scary unless you're the one wearing them. But blood-red lips and eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man? Now that might just do the trick. Cinna taught me that.

I take the handgun from my backpack as I step out of the car, and the sun glints off of the gold and mother-of-pearl plating. I don't need it, really – it's not like I'll be shooting anyone. I have people for that. But it rather completes the look, and plus, it matches my pin. I reach up and run the pad of one finger over the tiny mockingjay. I removed the tracking device and camera long ago, but it still feels like Dad is watching over me, somehow, even if he never made it long enough to see it delivered to me. Now Prim has one, and I may need to have one made for Peeta, as well. I'll have to keep an eye on both of them one way or another, no matter what happens. For now, though…

"Keep an eye on them," I instruct before turning towards the safe house, and Foxy nods.

I hope they both don't hate me forever for this. Then again, I eventually stopped hating Dad, so it's not impossible. And in the meantime, they'll have anything they want. They'll be absolutely spoiled; I'll make sure of that. Anything money can buy. And they'll be safe, too. If anyone so much as looks at them wrong – well.

I flick the safety off the pistol with a small smile.

Then they'd have to deal with the Mockingjay. And no one wants that.

**Author's Note:**

> This one is entirely for fun, guys. Tell me what you think and we'll see where it goes from there. XD


End file.
